'Worst' charity for veterans run by VA employee

Story highlights
The National Vietnam Veterans Foundation raised
nearly $9 million in 2014
But it donated less than 2% of that money
Washington (CNN) — At first glance, the National
Vietnam Veterans Foundation is a roaring
success. According to its tax filings, the charity
has received more than $29 million in donations
from generous Americans from 2010 to 2014 for
what it calls on its website "aiding, supporting
and benefiting America's veterans and their
families."
But look a little closer on those same filings and
you can see that nearly all of those donations
have been cycled back to telemarketers, leaving
less than 2 percent for actual veterans and
veterans' charitable causes
That's why Charity Navigator, one of the
nation's largest and most influential charity
watchdog organizations, has given the charity a
"zero" out of four stars for those same four
years.
"It's a zero-star organization and you can't go
lower than that," says Michael Thatcher, Charity
Navigator's CEO. "They don't have an
independent board of directors, they actually
don't even have a comprehensive board of
directors -- only three members on the board at
this point in time and some of them are family.
So one can say, is this representative of an
independent board? It's not."
The charity's most recently filed tax return, for
2014, lists a catalogue of expenses paid for by
donations: including $133,000 for travel, $21,000
for unnamed "awards", $70,000 for a category
described as "other expenses" and even a little
more than $8,000 for parking.
Charity president works at VA
The CEO and founder of the National Vietnam
Veterans Foundation, himself a veteran, is J.
Thomas Burch, who is also a federal employee
working as an attorney for the Department of
Veterans Affairs. Burch is deputy director in the
VA's Office of General Counsel, where he pulled
down $127,000 in salary in 2014. That's the
same year he drew a salary of $65,000 as head
of his "zero-star" charity.
A VA spokesman told CNN Burch's position at
the veteran's charity is not a conflict of interest
"per se". But the spokesman added the VA is
now "reviewing" the situation and that the
agency's Office of Inspector General is handling
that review.
When contacted by CNN, Burch asked that we
not contact him at his job at the Department of
Veterans Affairs, but he refused to answer phone
calls placed to his home. CNN tried to confront
Burch as he drove home from work in a black
Rolls Royce, but upon seeing a CNN camera
crew, Burch gunned the Rolls Royce down his
suburban Washington, D.C. street and
disappeared.
The charity's vice president, David Kauffman,
said in an email that the NVVF was responsible
for "feeding homeless and unemployed veterans
by donating to food banks, sent personal care
kits to hospitalized veterans and donated
blankets, hats and gloves to homeless centers."
According to the charity's tax filings, though, it
accounted for about $122,000 in cash donations
to veterans, out of more than $8.5 million raised
in donations in 2014. That is less than 2% of the
charities cash donations being used to support
veterans and their families.